JO ATKINSON AND NICK PUREWAL

MO FARAH has admitted he faces a race against time to be fit to compete at the Commonwealth Games.

The double Olympic champion pulled out of the weekend’s Glasgow Grand Prix after suffering from abdominal pains.

The 31-year-old will now make a decision on contesting the 5,000 metres and 10,000m at this month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow “further down the line”.

“It’s a good question, I don’t know,” Farah told the BBC when asked whether he would be ready for Glasgow.

“Hopefully I should be good, but I kind of missed a bit of training, and obviously I pulled out of the weekend’s Grand Prix.

“So I’m actually just going to get back into full training, and then we’ll see.”

Farah said team doctors have given him the “all-clear” to return to training, but admitted he remains unable to confirm his participation at the Glasgow event, with track and field competition starting on 27 July.

“I came back and had some tests done through British Athletics, which went well and now I’ve got the all-clear to get back into training, and I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“I’m just saying where I am right now.

“My aim is to compete in both events, but at the same time, I’m getting back into training, I’m having this bit of training, but you know, we’ll make a decision further down the line.”

Farah is scheduled to race over two miles on the roads of central London at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games on Sunday, but that participation would now appear to be in doubt given his comments.

Meanwhile, Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell, the former 100m world record holder, and Sherone Simpson, have had their doping bans reduced from 18 months to six months and are free to compete immediately, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has announced. The pair were suspended by a Jamaica Anti-doping disciplinary panel after testing positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine.

They appealed to CAS to have their bans reduced to three months and the appeals were partially upheld. As the six-month bans have already been served, they are now eligible to compete.

A statement on CAS’ website read: “CAS has upheld in part the appeals filed by the Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson against the decisions of the Jamaica Anti-doping disciplinary panel imposing a suspension of 18 months on both of them, starting on 21 June 2013.

“The CAS decided to reduce their period of ineligibility to six months, which has been already served. The athletes were already free to compete since 18 June 2014 after the CAS had granted a stay of the decisions of the Jamaica Anti-doping Disciplinary Panel of 8 and 10 April 2014.

“Both athletes filed appeals at CAS against their 18-month suspension. They put forward that the offense committed was minor because it was caused by contamination of the food supplement “Epiphany D1” by the banned substance Oxilofrine and requested that the suspensions be reduced to three months. They were heard at a hearing which took place on 7 and 8 July 2014 in New York.” Powell, 31, said he would make an instant return to the track in Lucerne today.

But, like Simpson, he will miss next week’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with the Jamaican squad having already been selected during their suspension.

Like Powell, Simpson tested positive in last summer’s Jamaican Championships and blamed the positive result on a supplement given to her by a training partner.